


Lives

by Naguodog



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Depression, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Suicide mention, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 11:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15639603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naguodog/pseuds/Naguodog
Summary: “If we can’t live, you have to.”“We’ll decide when you can die.”Sanzo thinks it’s a fair price for the burden of carrying their lives.





	Lives

**Author's Note:**

> This work has a lot of dark themes and imagery representative of a psychotic break. Please be aware of that before reading. It could be potentially triggering.

He comes to slowly, in pieces. Something feels off, but he can't figure out what at first. He thinks he should be in pain, but he isn't - just oddly stiff, more so than usual. Hazel’s voice only filters through as he opens his eyes, the relief evident on pale features. 

 

“Master Sanzo, thank goodness. I was worried I was too late.”

 

Something about the words sits wrong in his ears, settling in the pit of his stomach with something akin to dread. He tries to sit up, not knowing when he ended up on the ground.

 

“What happened. Where are the others.”

 

“Careful, ya don't want to be hurtin’ yourself now. We just patched you up.” Even as slow as his mind seems to be working, Sanzo doesn't miss the way Hazel’s gaze averts from his. He knows his companions were just here a bit ago.

 

“What. Happened.”

 

“I don't know the details. We found you on the ground in your own blood.”

 

A chill runs through him, the pendant on Hazel’s neck glinting in the fading sunlight and catching his eye. He tries to turn around, but he can't see any sign of anyone else. Just himself, Hazel, and Gat. He tries to stand, but Hazel pushes him back.

 

“Don't try to move too fast, you were only just revived.”

 

He freezes then, the dread clenching at his stomach. It feels like his tongue is sluggish, as if his whole body is moving and processing in slow motion, but his voice is surprisingly clear when he speaks.

 

“Revived?”

 

“Yes. Whoever it was got the best of y’all. They left an awful mess. It looked like a surprise attack.”

 

Vague recollections filter through his head, a fight that caught them off guard, pain and blood and shouting, and then nothing. Blissful nothing. But he knows he heard the other’s voices among that chaos. He’d heard their screams as they fell, too.

 

“Where are they.”

 

“.....They’re not here, Master Sanzo. They’re gone.”

 

“What do you mean. You revived us.”

 

“No, I revived  _ you _ , Master Sanzo.”

 

His heart almost stops again, clenching painfully. He feels more of that dread creeping in, settling uneasily in his gut and in his mind. A seed of an idea forms, spreading fast roots that he quickly ignores, because he refuses to accept it.

 

“Revive them.”

 

“I can't do that, Master Sanzo.”

 

“I don't give a fuck about your stupid prejudices--“

 

“That's not it. I mean I  _ can't _ . They were the only souls around. And you needed an awful lot of healing...”

 

Hazel doesn't even get a chance to scream, before Sanzo kills him, snapping his neck and tearing him apart in ways his human body had never moved before. Gat falls to the gun, too slow to protect his charge. It almost seems a shame, as Gat was always nice to him, but it’s not like he had much of a life without Hazel, anyway. Sanzo leaves their remains in the forest for the crows to find.

 

**

 

He lives in a fog for days. He stumbles through the forest, aimlessly going in any direction. He doesn't think, just surviving. It takes him weeks to reach the next town, and he knows he scares the locals, because the innkeeper cowers when he tries to make a reservation for the night. He doesn't know what he looks like, but it must be terrifying, because his reception in the dining room is the same. People steer clear of him, just him, then.

 

In civilization, somehow, their absence starts to sink in more than it did before. Ironic, when surrounded by people he feels so alone. But he has time to think now. Time to dwell when his focus isn't just surviving. He doesn't want to think anymore.

 

It’s when he goes in for a bath that he finally gets a good look at himself. Dried blood is still caked to him - his own and probably Hazel’s, too - staining golden hair a dirty brown color. His clothing is torn from whatever killed him, though there are no wounds. But he notices little, staring into the eyes in the reflection.

 

What was once a vivid, intense purple glints an ugly, pale yellow. The color shines in the light as if to mock him, a gross imitation of light and a color that shouldn't have been his. It looks sickly against his skin, and he turns away so he doesn't have to look at it anymore. No matter what he seems to do, he can't seem to clean the blood off him no matter how long and hard he scrubs.

 

He doesn't sleep that night. The silence and the moonlight weighing on him, making it hard to breathe. He pulls smoke into his lungs endlessly, but it clings, sticking to him even when he exhales. The cloud doesn't conceal his thoughts like it once did.

 

**

 

The guilt eats him alive. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here at their expense. He is capable of nothing. He knows he’s not worth the burden of their souls, and he never was. No one would have missed him, if he was gone. No one is left to miss him.

 

He fingers the gun, twisting it in his hands. The moonlight is heavy. Living is heavy. It takes so much effort just to get up every day. But this, this takes none. The Smith and Wesson is a perfect size, fitting so well against his temple. The click of the safety coming off is soothing, the familiar sound close to his ear. He closes his eyes - he’s not scared, not when he's already died once. But he doesn't want anyone to see this ugly gold when they find him. It's not his. It's theirs.

 

“Coward.”

 

Gojyo’s voice sounds so real in his ears, he can't stop his eyes from snapping open. They stand before him, the three of them, but not as he knew them. Their bodies are broken and bloody, all odd angles that seem to shift in unnatural ways, wounds shifting and reappearing on their skin. The details are fuzzy, but their faces are clear. They stare at him in disapproval and anger, accusatory glares on all of their faces.

 

“You're going to waste our lives for nothing.”

 

He gives them a look that’s almost pleading - more pathetic than he ever had been in life. But he’s so close to death he just doesn’t want to care.

 

“I shouldn’t be alive.”

 

They smile, whispering  _ ‘he’s guilty’ _ amongst themselves. Hakkai turns to him, smile too wide and too sinister to mimic anything he did in life.

 

“If you want to pay penance, then live.”

 

Goku grins beside him, bones shattered and golden eyes slitted sinisterly. Is it Seiten Taisei or Goku, he doesn’t know.

 

“If we can’t live, you have to.”

 

“We’ll decide when you can die.”

 

He wants to protest, but they’re right. After all, he owes them. It’s not such a bad price for the burden of carrying their lives.

 

**

 

“We’re taking the sutra! You're dead, Genjo Sanzo!”

 

They all freeze when he laughs, a harsh, mad sound that twists and corrupts even in his own ears. It's not funny, never was funny. This laugh is dangerous, feral, like the ravings of a madman. He laughs until he's gasping, feeling the too-wide split in his face his lips make as they curve upward. He meets their gazes through the corner of his eye, opened wide in an expression that contorts the angles of his face into something sinister.

 

“Sorry, you're way too late for that, bastard.”

 

The scent of blood is oddly calming, and he wonders if he would bleed as dark as these youkai, if he bled at all.

  
  


**

 

He's learned to love the rain. Not because it makes him feel any better, but it's something familiar. He's more himself than he's ever been in this haze, drowning in memories of his friends and his father. The sun is just as shrouded in darkness as he is.

 

In the absence of the sun, he can see them. He can see all of them. They scold him for his moments of weakness, those times he still considers holding the pistol up to his temple and ending it.

 

“You stole us,” they whisper, “how dare you dishonor us so easily.”

 

“You must pay.”

 

They keep him going, despite their jagged edges and harsh words, deep red blood coating their bodies in new ways each time. He’s still paying. He’ll keep paying. One day they’ll have their fill of bodies, and reward him the death he so desperately wishes for.

 

**

 

There’s only one of them that never speaks to him, always quiet in the background of his visions. It should have bothered him, but it doesn’t. Let him stay silent. Let him judge. He has no place anymore. Sanzo knows that moonlight abandoned him long ago.

 

**

 

He doesn't question the black robes when they appear one morning, putting them on before it even occurs to him that they're different. He doesn't mind - the color feels more fitting than the white these days.

 

‘ _ At least the bloodstains will be easier to clean, _ ’ he thinks wryly to himself, lips quirking upward in a sardonic sneer.

 

**

 

The sutra comes later, though his own is left in its place. The new one doesn’t belong to him, will probably never belong to him, but somehow it feels right, sitting on his shoulders. It’s a more effective weapon than his was, wiping out enemies in a single blow, almost without bloodstains, if he wishes. He can’t help but leave half of them sometimes, favoring the bullets when he has people trapped with him. There’s still something relaxing about the heat of the blood as it stains his skin.

 

‘ _ This is true darkness, _ ’ he thinks, and he doesn’t know why he does.

 

**

 

He doesn’t think anymore that he’s lost something, though the feeling lingered for a while. Perhaps a bet, a gamble made on his behalf, but he’s long since past caring.

 

They bend to his will so easily, like ants, not knowing he’s stained in blood. They act like he’s holy, when he knows he did nothing holy in his life. Still they bow, and Sanzo watches.

 

After all, it’s all just a game.

 

**

 

Far away, tucked into a corner of the night, the man watches with pride. Genjo Sanzo is a quick study in bloodshed, surpassing his wildest dreams. Amazing, how quickly the light of the sun vanishes when you erase the fuel.

 

Raising his cigarette high, he smiles up at the full moon, watching them all in quiet silence.

 

“I win, Koumyou.”

**Author's Note:**

> So. This whole thing was based off a Twitter fanart of Sanzo with yellow eyes and a black robe, which really made me think “okay but what if he was revived.” So. I wrote it. It’s fun to break Sanzo.
> 
> I promise other fics are coming soon, they got lost in editing limbo but they’re coming, I promise!! For now enjoy this.
> 
> Also rip Hazel, I’m sorry my dude.


End file.
